4 New Sewing Tools and Gadgets!

I’ve received and purchased a few new-to-me sewing tools in the past few months and I’m always eager to share them with y’all! A few of these were on my Christmas wish list, one my mom gave me, and the other I bought with my birthday money last month. All four are big winners and have already been great additions to my sewing room, so perhaps these are great things to add to your sewing wish list!

If you prefer this list in video form and want to see these sewing tools in action, keep scrolling a little bit and you can watch the video instead.

4 New Sewing Gadgets to Try in 2023

1.Walking Foot

First, I purchased the walking foot for my new Janome machine with my birthday money last month. It was a pricier item, but only because I decided to get the one specifically made for my machine. This is the first expensive machine I’ve had and I wanted to treat her right! I ordered my walking foot from sewingmachinepartsonline.com.

BUT, a walking foot doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. I’ve purchased a universal walking foot for several machines in the past when I taught classes and they worked just fine.

I wanted to include this sewing tool here because I got a comment on YouTube once from someone who’d been sewing for decades and had never known what that clunky foot that came with her machine was for! My demonstration of what a walking foot does changed her sewing life.

A walking foot, also called an “even feed” foot sometimes, has feed dogs on the top that grabs the fabric layers and helps feed them through the machine at the same pace as the feed dogs below are moving the fabric on the bottom. This is an essential tool for quilting, as it keep all those thick layers from bunching up as you sew them! A few machine brands, such as Pfaff, have a walking foot built in, so keep that in mind before you shop for one, in case you already have one and just don’t know it!

A walking foot is also helpful when sewing knit fabrics, or anything bulky. I truly feel it’s an essential foot to own and I’ve already used mine on several projects. It works beautifully and made me even more happy with my choice of new sewing machines earlier this year!

2. Misting Spray Bottle

Next up, my mom gave me a little misting spray bottle last month when I visited her and I can’t believe I didn’t know these existed! It helps so much when pressing tough creases out of fabrics. Unlike a regular squirt bottle or using the spray feature on your iron, this misting bottle mists the fabric evenly without leaving big wet spots. I love it, I use it constantly and they’re very inexpensive.

3. Wool Pressing Mat

The next two things go together and I’m super excited about them! I put a wool pressing mat on my Christmas list and my husband bought it for me. These come in all sizes, but mine is 13.5” x 17”. I was excited to have a small pressing surface right on my cutting table when I’m working on quilt blocks.

A wool mat is a very effective pressing tool and makes pressing faster. I’ll spare you the scientific explanation, but basically it radiates heat back up to the underside of your seam as you’re pressing it from the top.

After posting the video about this mat on YouTube, I received a few helpful comments warning against using the mat on top of my cutting mat or even on my cutting table, as the heat and steam from the iron will damage the surface beneath the wool mat. I’m still pondering solutions to this because I really do want to be able to use it on my cutting table. I’ll let you know what I come up with in a future post!

4. Sharper Image Mini Iron

To go with my wool pressing mat, I purchased a mini iron! I’ve wanted one of these for awhile and am very happy with how this one works. I went with the Shaper Image brand because it costs quite a bit less than the popular Oliso mini iron, and it gets equally good reviews. I tried it out and it works perfectly, so I’m happy with this purchase.

A mini iron is useful for sewing quilt blocks, paper piecing, or anything small, really. Trying to press sleeve heads and collars will make it handy when sewing clothing, and it would even be great for travel. If you’re in a sewing or quilting group and take your gear on the road, it’s great for that too!

Have you tried any of these tools? If you have any tips for using them, I’d love to hear them!

Cheers and Happy Sewing!

Nikki